“Married women often have a larger role around the house than men do, and they may have less time to exercise and stay fit than similar unmarried women,” said Dmitry Tumin, lead author of the study and doctoral student in sociology at Ohio State University.

“On the other hand, studies show that married men get a health benefit from marriage, and they lose that benefit once they get divorced, which may lead to their weight gain.”

Unfortunately, the data gathered can't tell us why these weight gains happen so we'll have to assume that all that stuff in the movies about recently divorced men subsisting on TV dinners Stateside – or fish, chips and curry here in the UK – is true. And that the modern have-it-all woman still finds the time to force her husband to consume the odd salad.

The researchers used data on 10,071 people surveyed from 1986 to 2008 to determine weight gain in the two years following a marriage or divorce.

The study also concluded that the older you were, the more likely the "shock" of a "marriage transition" would cause you to balloon, although one could conclude that the older you are, the more likely you are to be carrying a little extra weight anyway. ®